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It is time to learn Chinese

According to the wikipedia 51% of dubai population is Indian, whereas it says nothing about Chinese population. Makes it hard to believe there's a massive spread of Chinese slavelabor in Dubai. Let's be honest Indians living in Dubai are being exploited this has been confirmed by multiple news sources.

only 8% of Dubai is "other" - whites and East Asians.

Yeah whatever, your labourers are shamelessly exploited by Chinese companies and no amount of spin doctoring can hide that fact. Yes, I have been to construction sites and know how machinery operate but unlike Chinese no other nationality will work for more than 8 hours a day without overtime and demand extra OT for Friday/Holiday work. Also as far as accommodation goes I don't see any difference b/n the labour camps of Chinese & other companies. May be the 5 star labour camps that you mentioned may be situated deep inside the deserts :lol:.




So who are the hundreds of Chinese that I saw being bused to and fro from their worksites & labour camps. They are surely not all technicians and managers.

sure you saw them. did you see them on break from your labor camp? :lol:
 
Which also includes your brothers Pakistanis & Bangladeshis.

This is your problem - you don't even know what you want to argue, you just want to subvert this into race politics. Did you see anyone argue that learning Urdu/Bengali was necessary to communicate with Pakistani/Bangladeshi workers?
 
This is your problem - you don't even know what you want to argue, you just want to subvert this into race politics. Did you see anyone argue that learning Urdu/Bengali was necessary to communicate with Pakistani/Bangladeshi workers?

Why should anyone say that...It is basic common sense. Also Bengalis are fast learners of Hindi/Urdu.

sure you saw them. did you see them on break from your labor camp? :lol:

Whats so funny? I never lived in a labour camp, but I respect the people who do and work for a better future for their family back home..which sadly you seem to miss.
 
Why should anyone say that...It is basic common sense. Also Bengalis are fast learners of Hindi/Urdu.



Whats so funny? I never lived in a labour camp, but I respect the people who do and work for a better future for their family back home..which sadly you seem to miss.

I respect those who stay in their own country and tough it out, as long as its not a war zone like Somalia. There's plenty of opportunities in India, going overseas is a deep humiliation. I am myself humiliated whenever I read news about Chinese being mistreated elsewhere, luckily, this sort of news is much lower in the past 8 years than in the 90's and early 2000's.
 
The way those languages was selected official one is due to the fact of colonist history in the past.

In another way, it shows that China has never been interested in colonist strategy ever.

Otherwise, When Zheng He admiral during Ming Dynasty went to South Asia as well as Africa, we could have colonized all of those places he had touched since there is no power then that can be comparable to his fleet. Maybe in that way, we could have Chinese become the official language of south Asia and Africa???

Actually, we are not interested in that at all.
 
I respect those who stay in their own country and tough it out, as long as its not a war zone like Somalia. There's plenty of opportunities in India, going overseas is a deep humiliation. I am myself humiliated whenever I read news about Chinese being mistreated elsewhere, luckily, this sort of news is much lower in the past 8 years than in the 90's and early 2000's.

There are 2 type of Indians who end up in Gulf. One who goes to Gulf to make some quick bucks and return home. The other same as above but gets sucked up in the life of Gulf that they stay for ever. I don't want Indians to go abroad either but states like Kerala don't offer much employment opportunities making Gulf the 'promised land'.
 
There are 2 type of Indians who end up in Gulf. One who goes to Gulf to make some quick bucks and return home. The other same as above but gets sucked up in the life of Gulf that they stay for ever. I don't want Indians to go abroad either but states like Kerala don't offer much employment opportunities making Gulf the 'promised land'.

Is it not better to go to Mumbai or Delhi? To go to the Gulf, I heard that workers must pay thousands of dollars in "recruiting fees" and when they arrive, hand over passports. After they arrive, they're paid the equivalent of 200-300 USD per month, which isn't that much more than they'd make in Delhi or Mumbai, definitely not worth working 12 hours in the burning desert sun and unable to leave because passports got taken.
 
Is it not better to go to Mumbai or Delhi? To go to the Gulf, I heard that workers must pay thousands of dollars in "recruiting fees" and when they arrive, hand over passports. After they arrive, they're paid the equivalent of 200-300 USD per month, which isn't that much more than they'd make in Delhi or Mumbai, definitely not worth working 12 hours in the burning desert sun and unable to leave because passports got taken.

Again you are assuming that all Indians in Gulf are blue collar workers which is not the case. Indians work as construction workers to running multi billion industries. You can find Indians in every sphere in GCC...running small wayside shops to top positions in the Govt itself.Their pay ranges from few hundred dollars to thousands of dollars. As for taking passport only some companies do it and if you run your own business, you are your own boss. You can enter and leave the country through multiple entry visa.
 
Mandarin, unlike English, is a regional language useful for doing business in China only. 100 years from now, the language of science, diplomacy, business, and academic will remain English, not Mandarin. You will be using English to conduct business in South America and Africa, not Mandarin. Accordingly, there is no need to learn Mandarin unless you are a business manager who could be sent to China. When you want to import stuff from China, they will speak English to you, no need for you to speak Mandarin.

And Mandarin itself is unfit to be a world language because of its broken writing system and the tone system that the tone-deaf Europeans and North/South Americans cannot pick up.
 
Mandarin, unlike English, is a regional language useful for doing business in China only. 100 years from now, the language of science, diplomacy, business, and academic will remain English, not Mandarin. You will be using English to conduct business in South America and Africa, not Mandarin. Accordingly, there is no need to learn Mandarin unless you are a business manager who could be sent to China. When you want to import stuff from China, they will speak English to you, no need for you to speak Mandarin.

And Mandarin itself is unfit to be a world language because of its broken writing system and the tone system that the tone-deaf Europeans and North/South Americans cannot pick up.

Unfortunately, South Korea has the largest population of Chinese learner.
 
Interest in Learning Chinese May be Growing Exponentially
Ira Mellman December 14, 2010

Chinese media has come out with a report saying that more than 40 million foreigners around the world are learning Chinese. The reports quote a senior official with the Confucius Institute Headquarters.
We decided to see how fast Chinese language learning is growing in the United States. We checked with a company called Rosetta Stone, which offers computer language learning services in 24 languages, including Chinese.
A spokesperson told us Chinese is among the top 10 languages sold with a huge increase over a one year period from 2008 to 2009 in corporate sales, an increase of 719 percent.

We also spoke with Chris Livaccari, Associate Director of Education and Chinese language initiatives for the New York based Asia Society.

Ira Mellman: Chris, why such a rapid growth in people wanting to learn Chinese?

Chris Livaccari: "I think in some ways there is an analogy with what happened with Japanese in the 1980s. And I've also been a Japanese language teacher, so I've seen this from both perspectives. I think in the United States if you look at the headlines over the last several years, it's clear that there is a perception among Americans that China is the place that is going to define our future."

"And that the relationship between the United States and China is the most important bilateral relationship in the world right now. And so I think that realization, or that perception among Americans, has really fueled the growth of Chinese language programs, Again, much as we saw the growth of Japanese language programs in the 1980s and 1990s."
Ira Mellman: "Is Chinese a difficult language for an English speaker to learn?"

Chris Livaccari: "It is in some ways and in some ways not so difficult. The biggest challenge for American learners of Chinese is definitely the writing system. And the Chinese writing system is difficult even for Chinese people. As you know, it is a character-based language and it is completely different really from every other language that is in use in the world today for that reason. If you look at the scripts used in every other language used on on earth right now, for the most part they all come from a common ancestor."

"An alphabetic or syllabic system probably developed in Mesopotamia several thousand years ago. But Chinese is really unique. it takes an incredible investment of time and energy for students to know enough Chinese characters to be literate. So, it's a great challenge, but it comes with great opportunities. Because learning Chinese characters use other parts of your brain and develop other academic skills that other languages simply don't touch on. So I think it is a difficult language, that's obvious. But I think there is a real benefit to investing in the study of Chinese."

Ira Mellman: "And what is that?"

Chris Livaccari: "I think there are a number of things, but I would say one is many peole have commented on the spectacular success of China in the education realm, especially if you look at math and science and if you look at the results of the PISA exams that were released last Wednesday, the spectacular success in science and math in particular among Chinese-speaking nations, has been observed as potentially something that is contributed to by the fact that Chinese students are trained from a very early age at things like pattern recognition and memorization through their learning of Chinese characters. So I think there is a link in terms of students' cognitive skills development that is trained by learning Chinese characters."

"The other thing that is very important I think about learning Chinese and Chinese characters for American students, in terms of the benefit, is that because Chinese is such a different language, structurally, from English, it really enables students to see things from a completely different perspective. And helps them understand the idea of multiple perspectives and multiple viewpoints. So that, I think, for American students is the most important benefit to learn a challenging language that can build their confidence and learn a language that is quite different that can open their eyes to how language works and how multiple perspectives work."

Ira Mellman: Do you think Chinese learning is the fastest growing language learning in the world?

Chris Livaccari: "I don't have clear evidence as to if it is the fastest growing language in the world. But I wouldn't be surprised. In addition to the Rosetta Stone numbers you mentioned, I believe the American Council of the Teaching Foreign Languages has just released a report that suggests also Chinese the fastest growing language, with a growth rate of 195%. That's just talking about the United States. But I think it is clear that if it is not the fastest growing language in every country in the world, I think is is probably, overall, the fastest growing language in the world."

Chris Livaccari is Associate Director of Education and Chinese language initiatives for the New York-based Asia Society.






Interest in Learning Chinese May be Growing Exponentially | Asia | English
 
at the moment china is quite ahead of india , compare their economies with similar populations , compare their gdp per capita , china still grew fast in 2011 i no as turkey was 2nd fastest growing economy in 2011 with 8.5% and china was first but still both india and chinas gdp per capita is really low and theirs so many billionaires in india thats theirs extremely poor people the middle class is poor , also just check turkeys east parts and west , west e.g istanbul has one of the world most billionaires 4th i think middle class is good very good lifestyle ( i saw that personally i live in london and most of their lifestyle is much better as life here is much more expensive compared to income ) so both countries got a long way to go in terms of personal life quality , slums etc
 
I'm in the process of learning Chinese- chinthiye, minthiye, chowthiye, xiye xiye, laofo, lao kung, sifu, wa ai ni, ni hao, po hao, chiba, thuz, mayeli, ta huz, liao, poly.
 
I'm in the process of learning Chinese- chinthiye, minthiye, chowthiye, xiye xiye, laofo, lao kung, sifu, wa ai ni, ni hao, po hao, chiba, thuz, mayeli, ta huz, liao, poly.
But are you learning the tones, or can you even tell these tones apart? Most of us Indo-European language speakers and Altaic language speakers lack the tone gene to discern tones, so we will never get it properly when picking it up as adult.

Just stick to English and you will be fine.
 

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